Mini golf and earthquakes and new jobs, oh my!

On Friday, we were asked to go along to the monthly youth group outing. This month's activity was mini golf and arcade games at this place about 45 minutes south of us.

There were about thirty teens there, and I was very grateful that when Kimily co-ordinated rides for people, she made sure that someone picked up Brian and I. Why? Because otherwise the chances for getting lost go up exponentially.

"Go easy on the junior highers!" someone teased me before we started golfing. As if! They completely and utterly toasted my butt. I don't know what my final total score was, but I had several holes that I scored higher than 9 on. Thankfully, the kids didn't harass me too much.

Orientation for my new job started yesterday. The weird thing about pregnancy is that I can't tell if I've just got butterflies in my stomach, or if Shirley is being exceptionally active. As Shirley's main form of entertainment at this point seems to be kicking my kidneys, I was glad she decided to sleep through the majority of orientation. (If your butterflies know judo, it's probably the baby.)

I'm accepting bets for the final number of times I will need to purchase new pants before Shirley arrives in March. I'll keep a running tally on the blog, and the winner will get... something. (Probably sock yarn dyed in colors of their choice.)

I felt all domestic this evening, and made a Dutch apple pie from scratch. And just as I was putting it in the oven, we had a 5.6 earthquake. At first I was fine, because it felt just like when the Air Force jets would break the sound barrier over our house when I was a kid.

When I realized "Oh crap, that's an earthquake!" I got considerably more nervous, especially in light of the 2004 tsunami and the fact that you can see the ocean from our bedroom. But I'm guessing if the house didn't shake enough to knock over my potted plants, I probably don't have to worry about tsunamis too much.

Family ad nauseum

You can't fit three adults in the cab of a Ford Ranger. Well, I suppose you could, but only if they were all midgets and on exceptionally good terms with each other. But when these are the three adults in question,

driving cross country together seems a remarkably bad idea. Toss in the fact that it's a standard transmission and as the shortest person in the vehicle I'd get to sit in the middle, and it wouldn't be pretty. Faced with the prospect of spending several days squashed between two Mackey men and getting elbowed in the stomach every time someone needed to shift, I quickly developed a plan B.

While Pop and Brian drove the Ranger from Overland Park to San Francisco, I'd take advantage of the chance to visit my family for a few days, and then visit with Brian's family for a few more.

Like other Plan Bs, however, this had a few side effects. One of them was that, due to a layover in Denver, I had four plane flights in five days. I don't mind flying, but that seems a bit excessive.

Because my new job will be day shift (thank you God!) I've been trying to make myself less of a nocturnal creature. I was hoping that doing things in daylight and sleeping at night would also make the "evening sickness" much less of an issue, and it worked--kind of. Except for one spectacular episode where Shirley made it blatantly obvious that she was not in the mood for Subway, I didn't have any "moments."

I did, however, get to spend five days of pretty much constant nausea in strange houses. It got so bad that when I did my usual 0300 meanderings and realized that I WASN'T NAUSEOUS, I generally made a piggy of myself. (No matter how good the book is that you're reading and snacking by, you do NOT want to eat an entire box of Aplets & Cotlets in one sitting. Don't do it. Just eat the serving size the box recommends and call it good.)

I'll post pics and stories from the trip in a few days. Right now, it's 0445 and as I'm not currently nauseous, I'm going to go eat something. In moderation, of course.

pictures

I finally managed to get off my lazy bum and post. So, let's pick up where I left off last with pictures.

For Labor Day weekend, we went to the Tall Grass Prairie again, and I got to meet Silfert, whom I've known through the blogosphere and knitting forums and e-correspondence for the last few years, but had never met in person. I cannot tell you how much it amazes me that the internet allows one to correspond with total strangers regularly. (The fact that Audrey is an incredibly nice person and even knitted juggling balls for the baby out of organic cotton (!) just adds to my wonder.)


On the same road trip, I got to see the Wichita Corvette Fanciers out for a drive. I'll probably never own one, but I love Corvettes!

And apparently it was just a good weekend all around for those who like shiny cars, as I also got to see this:

At the last OB visit, we learned that Genghis is actually a girl, so we're naming her Shirley. She's doing well, and it looks as though we can expect her about March 10th, 2008. Given my family's tendency towards preterm labor, I'm guessing she'll show up the last week of February. But a February 29th baby would be great too!

As we move to San Francisco in three days, the living room currently looks like this:


Only more so.